Kennedy Range National Park, Nature reserve and national park in Western Australia.
Kennedy Range is a national park in Western Australia's Gascoyne region, about 150 km east of Carnarvon. It is a weathered sandstone plateau, essentially a huge mesa, extending 150 km, with cliffs up to 100 m high on its southern and eastern sides, cut by steep canyons.
The area gained national park status in 1993 to protect its distinctive geology and wildlife habitats. This designation marked an important step in ensuring the long-term conservation of the landscape.
The range marks the boundary between the Maia and Malgaru peoples, whose lands extended west toward Carnarvon and east respectively. Around 100 sites in the park hold meaning for Aboriginal people, some up to 20,000 years old. Springs at the range edge supplied game, and chert outcrops provided stone for tools.
Temple Gorge Campground offers overnight facilities, but visitors should bring their own water supplies as none is available on-site. Temperatures can become very high, so advance planning and proper gear are essential for a comfortable visit.
In the 1960s and 1970s, geologists found fossilised plants in the sandstone layers that date to the Eocene and are the earliest evidence of Banksia in Australia. The same beds also hold numerous fossils of marine animals from the Permian, when the area lay on the floor of a shallow ocean.
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